


table for two, flags for five

by shimadagans



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: 5 Times, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, M/M, Post-Time Skip, Post-War, Pre-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 13:15:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21392770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shimadagans/pseuds/shimadagans
Summary: Five times Sylvain and Felix share a meal. Snippets of their relationship over time.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 8
Kudos: 185





	table for two, flags for five

I

When they are children, they eat together. Only on occasion, and only at their parents’ prompting, but somehow or another, the young lords of houses Fraldarius and Gautier find themselves at their own little table, away from the hushed voices of the adults and their older siblings. The Lordling Fraldarius slides his sweets to the plate of Lordling Gautier when they’re both sure nobody is looking, in return for a few slices of roast. The older people in the room, absorbed as they are in their very important conversations, full of words that Felix pretends to understand and Sylvain pretends not to, do not notice. They giggle to themselves at the cowlick at the back of Margrave Gautier’s head, quieting at an appraising look from the Duke.

These visits aren’t common, but they manage to make the most of them, often sneaking off before lunch is properly finished, scuttling off to climb the trees of the Gautier manor, or play in the snow, or storm the near-empty training grounds of the Fraldarius estate. They fight with the too-heavy wooden training swords, or if Dimitri and Ingrid are there, they’ll all sneak into the library Felix’s dad keeps, reading tales of chivalry and honor until they all get boneless and sleepy by the fireplace, and a maid or _worse, _one of their parents comes to wake them.

Once, after lunch and before dinner, Felix actually beats Sylvain in a fight, to both of their surprise. Felix fusses when Sylvain slings an arm around his shoulder in congratulations, “Quit that, Sylvain.”

Felix, freshly eleven years old, squints up at him with a frown, “Techincally, I outrank you, y’know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sylvain snorts, both freshly bruised and always aching from carrying the weight of expectations, “Since when do _you_ care about rank?”

“I dunno,” Felix ducks out from his arm, putting their swords away, “Father always talks about stuff like that. He says I should start paying more attention, but I think all that rank and crest stuff is dumb, really.”

Sylvain, terribly aware of their differences for not the first nor last time in his life, gets his arm back around his shoulders, “Me too, Fe. Real dumb.”

When they go inside for supper, they’re scolded by the Margrave for dirtying themselves and sent upstairs to wash up a bit. When they finally get back downstairs, Sylvain expects Felix to gloat about his little victory, but he says not a word about it. Sylvain slides him extra meat this time, avoiding his brother’s sneer. Miklan wouldn’t understand friendship if it bit his nose, he thinks.

* * *

II

When they next eat together, it’s right after what remains of Glenn is lowered to the earth for the last time.

Felix hadn’t gone to the funeral. Sylvain finds him sitting under the oldest, most gnarled tree on Fraldarius territory, looking out past the horizon, though it doesn’t take a sharpshooter or a spyglass to see that Felix sees nothing of what he’s looking at.

Sylvain climbs the knoll, loud enough that he doesn’t startle the younger boy, but even when he plops down next to Felix at the top, the other doesn’t blink or move. Sylvain unwraps the meat pie he’d oh-so-carefully carried away from the reception and presses it into Felix’s hand.

“You should eat,” he urges, dusting his hands off on his stupid fancy coat, “I bet you haven’t all day.”

Felix finally turns to look at him, and he looks bad. Really bad. There are bags under his eyes that Sylvain hasn’t seen on any kid except maybe Dimitri, and his face is dirty, tell-tale tear tracks still present though his eyes seem dry.

“Eat,” he says again, nudging Felix with his shoulder, “I’ll be here. I made sure nobody followed me.”

Felix mechanically chews on exactly two bites of the meat pie before he sets it down in his lap. The sun is just starting to dip below the horizon when he finally speaks, voice a mere croak, “Why are you here.”

“’Cause you weren’t there,” Sylvain replies, settling back against the trunk of the old, old tree, tucking his hands into his pockets against the evening chill, “Didn’t know if anyone else already came looking for you.”

“They won’t,” Felix replies, so quick and quiet and _bitter_ Sylvain almost misses it, “They won’t come looking for me. They’d sooner go looking for whatever’s left of him than even _think_ about me.”

He tucks his face into his knees and his entire body shakes, with rage or pain or despair, Sylvain can’t tell. At just thirteen, he’s not an experienced confidante or comforter. He gives Felix all he can offer, still, scooting close enough that Felix can choose to lean into him if he wants. When he does just that a few seconds later, still shaking and face still hidden, Sylvain sighs out a breath through his nose and offers no useless platitudes. Felix would hate it, and “it’ll be okay” or “things will work out” seem like promises hollower than the trunk behind their backs.

They sit like that, curled up against the rapidly cooling night until a literal search party comes around the bend looking for the poor, lost heir to House Fraldarius. They don’t let go of one another until one of Felix’s tutors plucks him from Sylvain’s grasp, giving the other lordling a strange look and ushering young lord Fraldarius into a heavier cloak. They all speak in soft, careful voices, like they’re afraid they’ll break Felix, and Sylvain wants to scream, to shout, to hit something. _He’s not broken_, he wants to tell them, frustration raking its way up his arms as he tightens his jacket around him, _he won’t break, quit treating him so preciously _now,_ why didn’t you talk like this to him _before_?_

Sylvain knows better than anyone what breaking apart from the inside out looks like, and Felix was jagged just waiting to happen.

Felix looks at him over his shoulder, face wiped mostly clean by a fussy hand wielding a fussier handkerchief, and all signs of vulnerability have passed. Eyes made umber by the lack of light stare at him blankly before his attention is called back to one of the duke’s men. Sylvain feels something in him sink and wonders how far into his own head Felix has locked himself now.

* * *

III

The next time they eat together properly isn’t for years, when they’re both at the academy. They’ve just been assigned a new house teacher and have barely spent any time with their classmates yet. Sylvain’s already made his rounds to the other tables in the dining hall, sparing no expense in his attention to all the young women making the academy their temporary home. It’s been ingrained into him like a scar, this bad habit become fixation, and one of the few things that could pull him away from his focus is a too-familiar swatch of dark hair.

Felix makes for the far end of the table the Lions have informally made their own but gets waved over by Ingrid to sit next to her, which he seems to do with a grumble. Sylvain makes up some too-smooth excuse to the pink girl from the Alliance he’d been chatting up, darting over to sit across from his childhood friends with his own tray. Ingrid raises an eyebrow at him, and Felix downright glowers at him, “Already trying to land a date? We haven’t even properly started classes yet.”

“You know me,” Sylvain says, too easy, “Mixing and mingling. Gotta make sure I don’t miss any…opportunities.”

“You’re the worst,” Ingrid groans, and she tunes them both out to dig into her meat skewers.

“What about you, Felix? Already staked out the training grounds, I assume?” Sylvain casually slides him a cut of meat, a peace offering, and Felix snorts at him and shoves a sweet roll under his nose, ignoring Dimitri’s distant call of “Mind your manners!”

“Of course, I did,” Felix scoffs, “Haven’t seen any students worth my time yet, really. The fencing instructor, maybe, if I’m allowed.”

“Ah, already trying to land a date?” Sylvain parrots, snickering when Felix kicks him none-too-gently in the shin under the table, “What? I’m not judging, he’s probably good-looking under that mask. I trust your judgement.”

“Syl_vain_,” Felix says, half under his breath, eyes snapping to his with something like a spark, “Knock it off.”

Precariously toeing the line in this balancing act that’s become their friendship since Felix closed himself off has been…trying. But Sylvain is nothing if not persistent, “I’m just saying, if you need me to drop a line, maybe mention how good you are with a _sword_—”

“If you finish that sentence, I’m knocking both of you out and dragging you to the infirmary myself,” Ingrid jumps in, skewers completely devoid of meat, “No, you know what? I’ll get Dimitri to carry you both.”

They both shudder, and the conversation continues into idle chatter, though Sylvain keeps glancing at Felix, both in awe and fear of the barest glimpse of more emotion than he’s seen out his closest friend in years. _Is he secretly some sort of romantic? A bleeding heart?_

Any further attempts to bring up the subject of Felix’s maybe-thing for the fencing instructor lead to nowhere fruitful, so eventually Sylvain lets it drop.

But the thought, the idea of Felix just maybe being interested in anyone, let alone a _man_, that idea takes root in his mind and refused to be removed.

* * *

IV

They eat together again, and again, and Sylvain wishes he had paid more attention to those meals because now they’re not sure which one will be their last. Felix has proved no less prickly to deal with, even now that they’re older and hopefully wiser. Until today, Sylvain has enjoyed messing with him more than he’d like to admit.

(Oh, how he’d pay bullions to have Felix laugh, properly laugh. All of the Gautier lands to see him smile. Turns out _he’s_ the true bleeding heart.)

Today, though. Today, Felix has been given the hangman’s deal. A price too heavy to carry alone, the life of the Duke of House Fraldarius for the mind of the future King of Faerghus. Or so everyone at the monastery is hoping.

Today, Sylvain longs to offer his shoulder to lean on once again, and he’s afraid that this time, it won’t be enough.

Felix sits next to him, all the way at the far end of the dining hall, away from everyone else. Some of their former classmates and countrymen have made their attempts at sympathy and Felix had all but spat in their faces. Nobody has seemed to take it personally, thankfully, and the dining hall’s been mostly vacated.

Felix, who has lost almost everything he begrudgingly cared about. Felix, who has already crossed blades with a knight who calls himself Death and wants to do so again. Felix, his oldest friend and longest _want_, selfish as he might be to want more from a man who has lost so much.

Sylvain sighs out a heavy breath and nudges Felix with his shoulder, for once floundering in the art of conversation, “So…Did you see the new materials the smith brought in today? Looks like some neat stuff, might be—”

“Sylvain,” Felix says, plate and silverware still untouched on the tray Mercedes had pushed into his hands, “Don’t.”

He shuts his fool mouth and just looks at Felix. To the untrained eye, Felix probably just looks tired, but to someone as trained in the science of Felix-watching as Sylvain (ashamedly) is, he’s looked worse only once in his memory. His eyebrows are drawn into a semi-permanent clutch, and the clench of his jaw speaks of years of holding it all in. The feeling of rough, old bark through a coat in the evening chill springs to mind and Sylvain utters, “Sorry.”

Felix visibly stiffens and turns to glare right through him, but before he can get a word out, Sylvain continues, “I wasn’t there for you, when it happened. I haven’t been here enough for you in general but. I really let you down. Too much time spent ‘chasing skirts’ and all that.”

The heir to House Fraldarius visibly deflates and manages a weak hack of a snort, “Only you could find a way to make this about _you._”

“That’s, ugh,” Sylvain rubs at his face, still tacky with blood from a small cut he hadn’t bothered to have a healer look at, in his rush to get to his oldest friend's side in the wake of the battle, “That’s not what I meant. This is about you.”

“What if,” Felix says, looking back down to his tray, “What if I didn’t want it to be about me? It’s never been about me, why should it be _now_?”

Sylvain takes a chance, a leap, reaching for one of Felix’s hands and holding it between them, the smallest of squeezes given, “What if,” he echoes, “What if for me, it’s always been about you?”

There’s a long moment where Sylvain’s afraid he hasn’t bridged the gap, that he's made it worse, but then Felix is turning to him with wide eyes and an expression that shouts distress.

“I—sorry, that’s probably not what you want to hear right now, er. Forget I said anything,” Sylvain goes to get up and goes nowhere due to the vice grip Felix suddenly has on his arm.

“Sit down,” he says, yanking Sylvain back into his seat, the back of his neck just the slightest bit flushed, “And explain what the fuck you’re talking about.”

He’s quiet while he tries to do damage control in his brain, eyes flicking across Felix’s profile. “Explain,” Felix prompts him again, elbowing him for good measure.

“I don’t know what to explain,” he says, honest for once, with himself and with Felix, “I’ve didn’t really care about them, about Glenn, or about your father, beyond basic respect. I’ve never felt like we need to live in awe of them. The dead should stay dead,” he chances another look at Felix, and maybe he sees that spark he saw years ago in his eyes, “And we should be able to live our lives free of their burdens. You’re still here. You’re alive. I’m alive. We’re alive, here, together. And I’ll do anything and everything I can to keep us that way.” He feels foolish, emotionally rampant immediately after saying the last few words, but he tries for a smile, for Felix’s sake.

Felix snorts at that, “For now. You still need to keep up with your training.”

“I have you to watch my blind spots, though, don’t I?” he turns up the charm, hoping it’ll get at least a scowl for his efforts, but Felix just stares at him, “What? Something on my face?”

“You said…we should be able to live free of burden but…” Felix looks honest-to-goddess troubled, bless him, “What if there’s a burden I can’t be free of?”

“Is it something I can help with?” Sylvain immediately offers, leaning into Felix, relieved and deeply thankful for his apparent ability to do _something_ right, “Anything, you say the word.”

Felix is silent for a moment, what he can see of his expression thoughtful. “Well,” he says, finally, after what seems like an eternity to Sylvain, “All you have to do is say no.”

“Huh?” Sylvain says, but suddenly Felix has a gloved hand on his jaw, and his thoughts go all jumbled except for the knowledge that their faces are much closer together than they were before.

“Say no,” Felix says, gaze on him steady, resolute, and still somewhat sad, “Say no if you didn’t mean that part about us staying alive and _together_.”

Sylvain, to his credit, says blissfully little.

* * *

V

They’re blessed with many, many more meals together. During lunch one day, years after the war, when they’re both just starting to go grey with age instead of stress, Sylvain gazes fondly over his tea cup at the top of Felix’s head. His dear husband, ever the workaholic, already has his nose buried in a stack of official-looking documents, and a quick glance at the window assures him that it’s barely mid-morning.

“Lost these, again?” Sylvain prompts from across their cozy little nook, nudging Felix’s spectacles towards him. Felix barely looks up to take them up, but when he does, his eyes are smiling behind the glass. Sylvain gives a long-suffering sigh when Felix holds up a finger at him, _one more moment_.

“Sorry,” Duke Fraldarius-Gautier says once he’s finished scanning his oh-so-important papers, setting them down next to his own cup of barely-steaming Almyran Pine, “Those arrived this morning from the capital. You know how Dedue gets when these don’t get back to them on time.”

Sylvain does his very best impression of said royal retainer, which mostly just consists of clenching and unclenching his jaw with the straightest face possible. He’s rewarded with a rare, but more common than before, smile.

“Do you have time for your poor, neglected cup of tea now?” Sylvain trades expressions for his best pout, “What about your poor, neglected husband, who brewed your very favorite tea just for you?”

“You say that as if you don’t do this every chance you get, you fool,” Felix murmurs, rolling his eyes as he sips. His foot catches the crook of Sylvain’ ankle though, a dead giveaway that’s more fond than fight.

“I’ll keep doing it every chance I get, too,” he says, as if it’s even a threat, as if this isn’t something they’ve both been vying for since they knew they could, “Oh, right, Ingrid write to say she’s coming by. Said she’s bringing someone, but wouldn’t say who. She’s become such a _commodity._ Outrageous, really, that out of all of us, _she’s _the one who hasn’t settled down.”

“You say that like you have regrets,” Felix reaches across the table for his hand, and Sylvain meets him halfway, like always, paired rings on their fingers, “Do you?”

Sylvain surveys the crow’s feet just starting to take shape in the corners of Felix’s eyes, and smiles like he’s won the war all over again, “No, I can’t say that I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! This was incredibly self-indulgent and a direct result of me seeing so much good sylvix art and fic and having nobody to talk to about it so this just kinda. stewed in my brain for a while, begging to be written. I tried for a different tone than my usual stuff with this.  
Follow me on twitter @ shimadagans for more weird video game content and weirder ideas.


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